Identification of Floodplain Boundary and Relationship between Flood Pulsing and Human Adaptation : Case Study of Middle Mun River Basin case study of Middle Mun River Basin

Abstract

The main objective of this research is studying in relationships between human and landscape ecosystem of floodplain where dynamics of flood pulsing (Junk and Wantzen, 2004) plays a major role in supporting biodiversity and productivity of ecosystem, give benefits to human livelihood which can be described as ecosystem service such as providing good and materials (provisions service) and supporting the local economic (cultural service). As the importance above lead to questioning in 2 topic which is (1) How to identify boundaries and areas of floodplain in Middle Mun river region? (2) How humans adapt themselves to live with flood pulsing process of floodplain ecosystem?
This research uses various of satellite remote sensing method to study in 2 objectives. (1) identify the floodplain boundaries in regional scale by mapping geomorphologic floodplain area which can be analyst from Digital elevation model (DEM), and mapping historical flood area by extracting waterbody from Normalized difference water index (NDWI) (2) Studying the landcover pattern changes which can be classified from Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) with field survey in area of old village where human settle nearby floodplain more than 100-year (Aymonier, 2000) to represent the traditional knowledge how human adapt themselves to utilize various of flood pulsing advantage and define the negative impacts of land-use change in floodplain area that affect to ecosystem service.
The results revealed that human in Middle Mun river basin have ability to adapt themselves with dynamics of flood pulsing landscape in 2 way which is 1) Settle villages on non-floodplain area to avoid the impact of flood peak during flood season 2) Villagers get benefit from various ecosystem service of floodplain all the year to support their livelihood and local economic from differences of local natural resource and time
The changing of land use pattern by human activities in floodplain area which is (1) Increasing of agriculture area in temporary flood area. (2) Dredging and damming on river and wetland area to Increase the capacity of water storage that support drought season crop, Reducing the ability of floodplain to provide the ecosystem service which affect to human livelihood and local economic system that base on the productivity of ecosystem services from local natural resource.